


Pretty as a Peacock

by thewhiterose3



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Daggers, Gen, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:26:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8826793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhiterose3/pseuds/thewhiterose3
Summary: Prima knew he was pretty; his mama had always told him so. "Pretty and smart and gods-be-damned ruthless, child," she’d say with a pleased grin.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merriman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/gifts).



The couple in front of him is young and virile, ostensibly attractive, and bold because of it. You can get away with a lot in Old Town with a pair of faces like that and a little ingenuity.

 

“Got an open room topside?,” the girl purrs, after 15 minutes of Pree feeding them attention and his best hoc in equal measure. Her hand is still down the back of her boy’s pants leaving him glassy-eyed and the bartender mentally scrolls through his list of available sexers who will best give this pair what they want. With incredible timing, Handsome ambles down the stairs, his face calm but shoulders still wound tight, even as his last client leaves cum-drunk and happily limping. Handsome always comes to the Royale for work and unwinding between wetwork jobs and he takes both direction and charge so very well as the situation calls for.

 

“If you’ve got the joy, then Robbie-baby, over there, will ride you and your boy hard and put you away wet,” Pree suggests while motioning for Handsome to join them at the bar. Handsome Rob is apparently wasting his saunter on this bitch as she pouts and doesn’t even look his way. Her boy on the other hand appears to be panting at the bit at the image he’s just painted.

 

“But I thought you liked us?,” she simpers, batting her eyelashes. And that technique would work for her, and probably has, in any other hole in the wall, but not the Royale.

 

“Honey-child, you are a pretty one, but this hoc isn’t going to pour itself. And daaaaamn if your boy and Handsome over there don’t paint quite the picture.”

 

At this, she turns and Pree knows by her sudden intake of breath that she won’t monopolize his time any longer.

 

\---

 

Prima knew he was pretty; his mama had always told him so. _Pretty and smart and gods-be-damned ruthless, child_ , she’d say with a pleased grin. So when the medjays came and took him away to the harem, he didn’t fight it. He didn’t scream or lash out or beg like some of the other teenagers. Instead, he held his head high- he preened, he gloated, and he planned.

 

Over the years, Prima collected presents and favors. He hoarded secrets and skills. Learned that money and power, though oftentimes connected were not in fact the same. And that’s the lesson that put him miles ahead of his peers, that’s the mindset that put him in the Pharaoh’s (such a pretentious thing to name oneself) bed with a wicked smirk and a poisoned dagger up his sleeve.

 

When the night ended, Prima Dezz was in charge and that bitch that called himself Pharaoh no longer had a head attached to his body. Such a pity his dynasty was so short lived. And of course, Prima was such a smart boy, all of the medjays already liked him best and honestly most of the valley was glad the smarmy bitch was dead and gone. And he’d have to promote Harem Leader Kayla to the position of High Chemist. After all, it wouldn’t do to waste the mind of someone who could whip up a paralysis serum that strong with just the ingredients from their garden.

 

\---

 

Pree had other customers to attend to, paying customers even, but he couldn’t help his gaze gravitating to his favorite killjoys. Dutch was holding court like the warrior royalty she always would be no matter how far she ran. With subtle movements of her eyes she surveyed the exits and assessed each entering patron, all the while relaxed enough to laugh and shove Johnny off his stool. Their combined laughter lit up the room. D’Avin was standing behind them like the biggest and most muscled puppy, lapping up whatever attention he could get. He kept playing at the protector regardless of how his partners had been a near flawless team for six years before he came around and the fact that Dutch could break him without breaking a sweat if she really wanted to. Quintessential broken boy, indeed.

 

And then there’s Pree’s favorite. Johnny Jaqobis is the ray of sunshine that was never supposed to exist on this forsaken rock the Nine left to the poor, the wretched, and the lawless, let alone call it home. The kid was damn smart, far too trusting, and with just enough steel to get himself out of the scrapes his sarcastic open nature got him into. He was also one of the best friends Pree had found since his exile and demotion from Ruler of the Eastern Valleys to Head Bitch in Charge of the Royale.

 

“Oh sweetums, what trouble have you brought to darken my door this time?,” Pree asks Dutch with a grin.

 

“Just Johnny,” she quips “and his inability to resist naming and trying to befriend every living thing he comes across.”

 

“Even when, no especially when, said thing is definitely going to take his hand off,” D’Avin elaborates, ruffling his brother’s hair.

 

The boy in question doesn’t even try to hide his smile as he bats his brother away with a bandaged hand and launches into a spirited defense of a lost and hungry hybrid dog/turtle creature that goes by the name of Sandy.

 

Johnny was the kind of boy that needed a home, needed people around him, but not in the desperate clinging way of his brother. This sunny boy simply made himself a series of homes, listening and talking in equal measure, offering help and listening to advice, creeping under your skin until you lit up seeing him just as much as he did for you. From his ship’s AI to Pree’s sexers, Johnny cared and helped and made a particular effort to make the people and entities around him happier, regardless if he was paying for their services or not. The loquacious boy with mischief in his eyes was one of the few people he’d ever met who truly believed that having joy didn’t entitle him to anything from anyone.

 

\---

 

The Peacock was the name Prima finally decided on. His pretty face was what got him into the throne room in the first place, so why not make it a weapon? People underestimating him was his specialty and it was blade he brandished with skill and precision. And he learned from his predecessor’s many flaws, as well. He didn’t take more than the people could give and for that his people loved him. He treated them as good-hearted and well compensated servants, which was quite the step up from being slaves. Weren’t the rest of adjacent valleys just aching to live under his benevolent dictatorship? How could they not?

 

In the end, Prima’s greed got the better of him. He conquered the Eastern Valleys, he bent them to his will, and then the drought happened. The fires blazed and the houses burned. In his quest for more, the Peacock did not plan for the worst. The food stores ran dry. He could not provide for so many when resources were so few. His people were now used plenty and there was none, so they came for him.

 

And he ran. Across the stars and under the radar, Prima left behind his riches and his failures, his family and his name. He would learn his lesson this time. Find a place where no one knows your face, clean it up, make it right, and don’t ask for more. When he steps off the transport onto Westerly, he becomes Pree. And the night he saunters into Old Town’s only bar with a smirk and poisoned dagger up his sleeve? That’s when Pree finds a home.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Yuletide Prompter: I am so glad that you love Pree as much as I do. I hope you enjoyed my crazy and have a joyful rest of your holiday!
> 
> Disclaimer: They're not mine, never will be; they're just so much fun to play with.


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